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PAUL KOHN'S

La Difference

Jews Fooled By
Phony Chain E-mail

tZ7

LUNCH • DINNER • COCKTAILS

Father's Day is
right around
the corner

Many well-meaning Jews fooled by 'World Wide Fib.'

10:

RICHARD ALLEN GREENE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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"Pressure is being put on the Jewish
Community of Prague by the Czech
Government to allow [an] insurance
company to build residential proper-
ties on the site currently occupied by
the Old Jewish Cemetery in the
Jewish Quarter of Prague."
The e-mail claims that the cemetery
in question is the one where Rabbi
Judah Loew,. the legendary creator of the
Golem, is buried. It urges readers to e-
mail the Czech Minister of Culture,
"Mr. Pavel Dorstal," to protest.
For starters, the Culture Minister's

card the one about the
father who told his chil-
dren he was leaving their
mother in order to get
them to come home for Passover?
What about the man who taught his
parrot to daven? Read any good
Jewish haiku lately?
If the answer to any of these ques-
tions .is "yes," there's probably e-mail
involved. Jewish jokes have been cir-
culating on the Internet
since e-mail became widely
available, and most for-
Don't Spread That Hoax!
III4
warded e-mail is amusing
or harmless.
But there is a breed of
not-so-harmless forwarded e-
mail infiltrating the online
Jewish community — peti-
Hoax Catalog
tions that ask the recipient to
Misinformation
take action against some per-
ceived injustice.
One of the most widely
circulated petitions con-
"Classic" Urban Legends & Myths
cerns the Old Jewish
Cemetery in Prague, which -
was allegedly under threat
from developers who want-
name is "Dostal," with no "R." And
ed to turn it into residential property.
the Ceska Pojistovna insurance com-
That e-mail was full of errors and
pany plans to build an underground
inaccuracies, but it did have an effect
parking garage, not residences.
on the Czech government, according
Perhaps most important, the grave-
to a representative of the Czech
yard that was discovered is not the
Ministry of Culture.
famous Old Jewish Cemetery — that
An official in the ministry's
cemetery is in Josefov, the historic
. Department of Monument Preservation
Jewish Quarter.
said her office has been getting an aver-
The Czech government, the insur-
age of 20 to 30 cemetery-related e-mails
ance
company and the local Jewish
a day since January. Most of them were
community have reached a compro-
from Great Britain or the United States,
mise under which construction will
she said, but responses have come from
continue above the cemetery without
as far away as Venezuela, South Africa
further disturbing the graves.
and Israel.
But the inaccuracies in the e-mail
A Prague site, but not the Old
have not stopped hundreds of people
Jewish Cemetery, had been the subject
from writing to Dostal — the chain
of controversy since 1998, when an
letter does have the correct e-mail
insurance company excavating to
address for the Minister of Culture.
build an underground parking lot at
New Yorker Helen Bird was one
its headquarters uncovered the
who took action.
remains of what is probably the Czech
"I am not a person who forwards
Republic's oldest Jewish cemetery.
this kind of thing usually,". she told
The e-mail chain letter alleges that

84 .4ofg

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